ATLANTA
— Tuesday’s runoff between Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s
Sixth Congressional District will decide what has become the most expensive House campaign in history — and quite possibly the most consequential special election since Watergate.
Yet
as high as the stakes may be, the race to fill the seat vacated by
Health Secretary Tom Price may turn on a simple question: whether the
Democratic energy opposing President Trump is enough to overcome the
built-in Republican advantage in a conservative-leaning district.
Mr.
Ossoff, a Democrat, is counting on Mr. Trump’s unpopularity to carry
him past Ms. Handel: More than three out of four Democrats in the
district hoped their vote would send a message to the president, an
Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found. Ms. Handel, a Republican, is
relying on the district’s sharply Republican tilt, relentlessly linking
Mr. Ossoff to a national Democratic Party he has handled gingerly.
Here’s what we’ll be watching for Tuesday night (and where to follow live results):
A Tight Race
Special elections can be especially hard to handicap, but the initial vote,
in April, suggests a close result. Mr. Ossoff won 48 percent, but a
host of Republican candidates received a combined 51 percent, forcing a
runoff.
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Mr.
Ossoff has pursued a two-pronged strategy, aiming to peel off a
fraction of Republican-leaning voters with a sober, centrist message
while mobilizing a broader group of moderates and liberals who are
infrequent voters at best and seldom turn out in special elections.
He
could win by carrying just 3 or 4 percent of the voters who backed
Republican candidates other than Ms. Handel in April. He could also win
by turning out enough supporters who did not vote in April.
The final polls showed an extremely close race, with neither candidate holding a clear advantage.
A Surge of New Voters
Nearly
150,000 people have already cast ballots in early voting — nearly three
times the early vote in April, when only 193,000 ballots were cast over
all. Nearly 40,000 people who have voted early in the runoff did not
vote at all in April.
Both
campaigns have welcomed the additional voters. But the new voters are
far younger, somewhat more diverse, and much less likely ever to have
voted in a Democratic or Republican primary than the voters who turned
out in April. All of which bodes well for Mr. Ossoff.
Expect a Long Night
Georgia
often takes a long time to count its votes, and the April ballot was no
exception. The first returns — the early votes of people who cast their
ballots at polling places, rather than on paper — will not be
conclusive, either.
Those
early returns will be more Republican this time, because nearly 50,000
Republican-leaning voters who cast ballots on Election Day in April
decided to vote early in the runoff. In addition, many
Democratic-leaning in-person voters from April chose to vote by mail in
the runoff.
As
a result, do not expect meaningful clues to the final result until we
learn the votes of people who went to the polls on Tuesday.
Graphic
Who Financed the Georgia Sixth, the Most Expensive House Election Ever
Candidates and outside groups have spent roughly $55
million in a battle over a U.S. House seat vacated by Tom Price, the
health and human services secretary.
Saved by Gunman’s Attack?
For
all the early and absentee ballots already cast, the race is
competitive enough that Election Day could prove decisive. And, perhaps
showing how badly they need a lift, some supporters of Ms. Handel have
seized on a liberal, anti-Trump gunman’s attack
at a Republican congressional baseball practice last week as a boon,
thinking it could jolt at least some complacent voters into turning out
for her.
“I
think the shooting is going to win this election for us,” said Brad
Carver, a Republican official in Georgia at the county and state level.
A little-known conservative group bought a small amount of television time on Fox News over the weekend for an ad
showing emergency crews carrying victims of the attack on stretchers.
“The same unhinged leftists cheering last week’s shooting are all
backing Jon Ossoff, and if he wins, they win,” an announcer intones.
Ms. Handel’s campaign denounced the ad but did not call for it to be taken off the air.
Each Side Badly Needs a Win
Republicans
have held the Sixth District for nearly 40 years. A loss would
reverberate in Washington, imperiling the party’s already-stalled agenda
and prompting some incumbents to retire rather than seek re-election.
Most immediately, it would threaten the Republican health care overhaul,
which is expected to come up for a Senate vote in the next two weeks.
Democrats, already enjoying a strong recruiting season, would see a
bumper crop of candidates for 2018.
But Democrats — who have already fallen short in special elections for House seats in Kansas and Montana,
where their candidates faced stronger opposition — sorely need more
than a moral victory. They need to show they can compete and prevail in
the kind of wealthy, highly educated districts that represent their most promising path to a House majority next year.
What We Know Already
Tuesday’s
result may sharply affect congressional recruitment, retirements and
fund-raising. But for Democrats’ chances of recapturing the House in
2018, the lesson is the same whether Mr. Ossoff wins with 51 percent or
loses with 49.
Mr.
Ossoff’s performance has already confirmed that Republicans in wealthy,
conservative-leaning districts will be burdened by Mr. Trump’s
unpopularity. Previously safe Republican incumbents in the suburbs of
Philadelphia, Miami and Orange County, Calif., could all be vulnerable
next year.
The
bottom line: A close race in Georgia’s Sixth District is consistent
with a strong Democratic performance in next year’s midterm elections —
strong enough, perhaps, to retake the House. A few thousand votes either
way won’t change that.
Tuesday’s Other Special Election
Though the Georgia battle has consumed the country’s political class, another special election on Tuesday will decide who succeeds Mick Mulvaney,
who represented South Carolina’s highly conservative Fifth
Congressional District before he was named director of the Office of
Management and Budget.
National
Democrats have done little to compete in the district, which remains
strongly supportive of Mr. Trump, and Ralph W. Norman, a Republican
former state legislator, is widely expected to defeat Archie Parnell, a
Democrat and former Goldman Sachs tax expert. But Mr. Parnell had more
money to spend than Mr. Norman in the final weeks, and some South
Carolina Democrats expect a surprisingly competitive finish.
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